Friday, September 27, 2002

By the time the regular season ends this Sunday, the members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America will have shipped their MVP ballots off to whatever unindicted accounting house remains to tally them. For those unaware of or confused by the BBWAA's criteria for selecting the MVP, allow me to lay out what -- based on previous years’ voting -- seem to be the guiding rules:

Rule #1: Only the best players on playoff teams shall be considered for the MVP. Chipper Jones won the National League MVP in 1999, even though he was perhaps only the third-best player in the league that year. This was because the two players who arguably had better seasons than Jones -- Larry Walker and Mark McGwire -- played for teams that were well out of the race by the time September rolled around. Jones, meanwhile, shone as his Braves won a tightly-contested race for the division title. It’s very simple: carry your team to the playoffs, and you’re the MVP.

Rule #2: The carry-your-team-to-the-playoffs requirement will be set aside for players who give truly outstanding performances on non-playoff teams. Even though the 2001 Giants did not make the playoffs, Barry Bonds was named MVP after smashing most of the records for offensive performance, including the record for most home runs in a season.

Rule #3: Even an outstanding player will not be considered for MVP if his team finishes in last place. This is why Alex Rodriguez was denied the award in 2001, and will probably be denied again, even though he has made everyone reassess everything they thought they knew about the shortstop position.

Rule #4: Forget that Andre Dawson won the MVP in 1987 while playing for the last-place Chicago Cubs. If a guy who didn’t even break .900 OPS in "The Year of the Home Run" could win the MVP, surely Rodriguez would have won it last year, right?

Rule #5: If a pitcher delivers an MVP-worthy performance, ignore it, even though the official voting rules state that pitchers should be considered. Pitchers, you see, have their own award, so forward-thinking members of the BBWAA may feel justified in excluding them.

This explains why Pedro Martinez didn’t get the MVP in 1999, despite winning the pitcher’s Triple Crown (leading the league in wins, strikeouts, and ERA) and carrying a seriously flawed Boston Red Sox team to the playoffs.

Rule #6: Forget that Roger Clemens won the MVP in 1986, after leading a talented Red Sox team to the playoffs and nearly winning the pitcher’s Triple Crown. After all, if a pitcher with a 2.48 ERA and 238 strikeouts in a low-offense year could win the MVP, surely Pedro Martinez would have won with a 2.07 ERA and 313 strikeouts in a banner offensive year.

Bonus points for those who remember that pitcher Lefty Grove was the first winner of the BBWAA’s MVP award in 1931. Now, for the sake of consistency, forget that too. Of course, if you can remember the 1931 season, you're probably old enough to forget that on your own.

Rule #7: Disregard Rule #5 if the pitcher in question is able to hold a three-run lead in the ninth inning of every third game or so. If he can do this, he is magically transformed into a "closer" and is rewarded with his very own statistic, the save. Do not, under any circumstances, keep in mind that saves are just a measure of opportunity, and that some relievers routinely hold one-run leads in the seventh or eighth innings. These relievers have no special stat like saves, and therefore must be worthless. This rule explains Dennis Eckersley in 1992, Willie Hernandez in 1984, and Rollie Fingers in 1981.

Rule #8: Simple logic dictates that under no circumstances should someone be given the MVP if he is not even the best player on his own team. But set logic aside when you don't care for the better player (as when Barry Bonds lost to Jeff Kent in 2000), or when giving the award to the inferior player would make for a feel-good story (as when Ichiro beat out Brett Boone in 2001).

Rule #9: Finally, voters should keep in mind the all-important "I hate that sonofabitch" rule which dictates that players who are cold and aloof to reporters should not get the award no matter how amazing a season they have. This rule explains the numerous slights to Ted Williams (particularly 1941) and the seeming gyp-job that robbed Albert Belle in 1995. The corollary to this rule is that when you're screwing an otherwise worthy candidate, the award should go to a loveable and/or chubby player who smiles a lot and gives great quotes, like Ivan Rodriguez in 1999, Mo Vaughn in 1995, or Terry Pendleton in 1991.

Now let’s see how the rules apply to this year’s MVP races:

National League

If you’ve been reading this column for any length of time, you know how I feel about Barry Bonds. In my humble opinion, he’s the greatest player in baseball today, the greatest since Ted Williams retired, and except for The Babe and Williams, the greatest player of all time.

Not all the members of the BBWAA agree. Or if they do agree, they apparently have other reasons not to vote for Bonds.

But with Bonds having another phenomenal year, and with the Giants slowly but surely putting the Dodgers away, the writers may have no choice but to go with Rule #1 and give Barry his fifth MVP award (it should be his seventh, but that’s a subject for another rant).

Bonds is doing so well that even if the G-Men choke down the stretch, he should land the MVP according to Rule #2. But I don’t think Bonds is a lock unless the Giants win the division. The writers will blame any choke jobs on him. They'll criticize him for not hitting another 73 home runs, they'll say that he somehow failed to lead his team to victory, and they'll screw him out of the award even though San Francisco would never have sniffed 85 wins without his bat.

In that case, John Smoltz would get some consideration pursuant to Rule #7, Jeff Kent pursuant to Rule #8, and Shawn Green, Albert Pujols, Lance Berkman, and Sammy Sosa pursuant to Rule #9. Call it a gut feeling, but if the Dodgers pass the giants, it’s Shawn Green’s to lose.

Notably absent from most writers’ ballots, however, will be Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling, who are perhaps the best Rule #6 Clemens-exception candidates in many a year, with the two of them carrying Arizona to the division title almost all by themselves. One or both of them will win the Cy Young Award this year, and most writers will consider that enough, according to Rule #5. For my part, I’d list them second and third on my ballot if I had one, and no, I don’t know which of them I would put second and which of them third.

American League

Based on things I’ve read, there appear to be only three serious Rule #1 candidates in the American League this year: Alfonso Soriano and Jason Giambi of the Yankees, and the A’s Miguel Tejada. Let’s break ‘em down:

Soriano: Pro: He’s having a breakout season on the league’s marquee team, and by season’s end will have joined the vaunted 40-40 club. (Digression: given that home runs are far more important than stolen bases, wouldn’t you rather have a player be in the 50-20 club, or the 45-30 club? 40-40 only gets play because it sounds cool. It’s really a junk stat. End of digression.)

Soriano is an exciting player whose non-traditional talents -- most notably power for a second baseman -- make him this year’s Ichiro to many voters. Con: Rule #8 issues. Not only is he not the best player on his team, he’s not even the second best player on his team, with Giambi and the MVP-buzzless Bernie Williams both playing better all year. Yeah, a lot of life is based on exceeding expectations rather than actual greatness, and Soriano has certainly exceeded expectations, but if he wins the MVP award this year you have my permission to ignore all future MVP awards the way you would any other beauty contest.

Giambi: Pro: Came to New York and handled the heat where many previous free agent acquisitions have melted. Con: Some writers probably still don’t like that he left Oakland for the greenbacks and may hold it against him as a form of quasi-Rule #9 protest. And though he has had a good year, it hasn’t been quite as good as his previous two. In other words, what the expectations game giveth in the case of Soriano, it taketh away in the case of Giambi. Indeed, both Yankees will be hamstrung by the perception that they aren’t true Rule #1 candidates. The Yankees are supposed to win their division every year; no single player seems to make a big difference. Number of Yankees’ playoff appearances since their mid-90s rise: 8; Number of MVPs in that time: 0. Sorry Jason and Alfonso, it ain’t gonna be you.

Tejada: The fashionable choice, with some high-profile hits in some important games. Sure, the A’s miraculous second-half comeback has more to do with the day-to-day brilliance of Oakland's pitchers. But during that 20-game win streak, all you heard about was Tejada’s late-inning heroics. If the writers pick a Rule #1 candidate this year, it’s going to be Tejada. Tejada has been the Big Story, never mind that he is currently ranked 20th -- 20th! – in OPS in the American League this year. Rule #1 has always allowed a little wriggle room if the winner happens to play for a playoff team, but Tejada is in Eric Hinske and Jacque Jones territory. If you had to think for a minute before you could remember which teams those guys play for, you shouldn’t seriously consider Tejada for the MVP.

With those three pretenders out of the way, we’re left with only one serious choice for MVP, and that’s Rule #2 candidate and the poster boy for abolishing Rule #3, Alex Rodriguez. Sure, he'll only see the playoffs this year if he buys a ticket, but that’s not his fault. A-Rod will hit close to 60 home runs. A-Rod has played the best shortstop in baseball. A-Rod has showed up and played every single game this season even though his teammates have been mailing it in since May, and he is the single biggest reason that the Rangers haven’t been a complete embarrassment in the phenomenally competitive AL West. In short, there is nobody better than A-Rod, and nobody nearly as valuable in the American League.

Gee, it's too bad the pre-2002 collective bargaining agreement was such a disaster; otherwise, justice would demand that A-Rod make more money than anyone else in the game.

Monday, September 16, 2002

When last we met I was giving props to the Oakland A’s for going on a tear and seemingly putting the division title in their back pocket. Now, that 20-game winning streak and fifty cents only gets the A’s a bag of chips, because as we go to press, the Anaheim Angels have matched them at 91-55 atop the AL West, taking three of four from the East Bay Elephants, and sending a clear signal that against all odds and aesthetic considerations, this year the road to baseball heaven goes through Orange County.

Those of you who live back east and go to sleep before the late SportsCenter might be asking yourselves where in the hell the Angels came from. The quick and dirty is that while the A’s were getting all the press, the Angels were silently keeping pace, playing .800 ball and waiting for mid-September when they would play Oakland eight times in eleven days. In NASCAR parlance, they’ve been drafting, letting the A’s provide the aerodynamic wedge while they bided their time just behind, conserving fuel in an attempt to break away in the closing laps.

So why is this historically snake-bitten team winning? For one thing they’re hitting the ball pretty well. The Angels lead all of baseball in batting average, and by enough of a margin to place them fifth in the league in on-base percentage despite ranking a pathetic 26th in walks. What’s more, while the A’s red-hot pitching staff has gotten all the press in the past month, it's the Angels who lead the American League in ERA.

But while the numbers tell us a lot, the way the Angels have been winning games lately may tell us just as much. Two of their three wins against Oakland and close to a third of all of their wins since the beginning of August have come in one-run games. And as every good stat-head knows, winning one-run games has a lot to do with luck. Indeed, just looking at the Oakland series and seeing a bench warmer like Shawn Wooten get the game-winning hit on Wednesday, and watching the ice-cold Darrin Erstad -- a player having such a craptacular year that manager Mike Scioscia had him on the bench in Thursday night’s key game -- get a key ninth-inning pinch hit to set up the win, even the most objective baseball analyst might start thinking the Halos are charmed. Or blessed. Or whatever.

Does the Angels' luck take anything away from their success? Of course not. The A’s themselves had luck to thank for a good share of their amazing run.

Besides, luck is the residue of good planning. Even though no one in Anaheim is putting up an MVP or Cy Young season (nor should they have been expected to), management gave Scioscia a flexible roster with few if any black holes. Scioscia, for his part, has used his role players wisely and generally put guys in positions where they are most likely to succeed. It’s been a nice effort all around this year for the Angels, even if good fortune has smiled upon them a bit.

Now matter how they did it, the Angels have made things exciting in the AL West. Given the Mariners’ recent struggles and the Red Sox’ regularly-scheduled late-season swoon, both Oakland and Anaheim will make the playoffs. But the stakes are still high. The loser of their dogfight will fly 3,000 miles and take a bus to the Bronx for the privilege of facing the Yankees in the first round. You can bet that neither team will coast its way into October.

The Angels take their juju to Oakland on Monday night for a four-game series that could decide the division title. Adjust your baseball-watching schedule accordingly.

Perverse Incentives

Normally I would never wish a loss on my favorite team. But as Mac Thomason over at the excellent Braves Journal has pointed out, Braves fans may find themselves wanting their team to honk one at the end of the season.

As I noted a couple weeks ago, the San Francisco Giants blew their last game in Atlanta when Rob Nen failed to hold base runners in the ninth inning. The game eventually ended in a rain-induced tie. As a result, the Giants and the Braves will play only 161 official games this year.

That means the Giants and Dodgers may end the season a half-game apart in the wild card race. If that should happen, the Giants and Braves would be forced to make up L'Affaire Nen in Atlanta one day after finishing their regularly-scheduled tilts on Sunday, the 29th of September. The Giants (who finish the season with an odd Sunday evening game against the Astros) would take a cross-country flight and arrive in Atlanta around 5 AM Eastern time on the day of the makeup game.

If the makeup game becomes necessary (a distinct possibility, given that the Dodgers and Giants are in a battle every bit as tight as that between the A’s and the Angels), and if the Giants come to Atlanta a half-game ahead of the Dodgers, then the Braves would want to win, forcing the Giants to fly back to San Francisco the next day to play a one-game tiebreaker against the Dodgers. If the Giants won that game, they would have to hop right back on the damn plane and come back to Atlanta for the first round of the playoffs.

If, however, the Giants finish half a game behind Los Angeles, the only way for the Braves to ensure a jet-lagged opponent in the first round would be to lose the makeup game, sending the Giants back to San Francisco for the tie-breaker with LA.. If the Braves won, they would face a well-rested Dodger team in the first playoff game.

Of course all this assumes that the Braves would rather face a travel-weary Giants team than a fresh Dodger team. That might not be the case. Tired or not, in Barry Bonds the Giants have a five-time MVP batting third, and he’s always been tough on the Braves. What’s that? You say Barry has only won four MVPs? Well you’re wrong, because he’s got this year’s in the bag. If you don’t believe it, meet me back here next week and I’ll prove it.

Monday, September 9, 2002

While it was still going on, major league baseball's recent labor drama was portrayed as a players vs. owners battle royale, with the fan's inalienable right to occasionally root for a winner allegedly at stake. In hindsight it looks more like a mob war.

Before the labor rhetoric heated up last year, baseball’s Capo Regimes like Jeffrey Loria and Carl Pohlad (led by Don Selig, sitting silently above the fray, petting a cat and watching his children run his empire) pushed competitive imbalance instead of narcotics and extorted new stadiums instead of cement contracts. Life was grand, and there was plenty of walking around money to shoot the players’ way, even if the bosses had to pretend to be poor olive oil salesmen when the press came snooping around.

But when George Steinbrenner broke with tradition and started his own television network, Selig and his cohorts reacted like Don Barzini and Bruno Tattaglia post-Solozzo: they all wanted to wet their beaks a little, and if Steinbrenner wouldn’t let them, it was going to mean war.

And war it was. What played out over the past few months was essentially an attempt by a certain faction of owners -- led by Selig -- to whack the old man in New York.

And whacked he was, at least financially.

Under the new agreement, well-run teams like the Yankees -- and to a lesser extent the Giants, Mariners, Indians, and Cardinals -- are forced to funnel even greater amounts of money than before to clueless organizations like the Phillies, Angels, and Tigers, who will in no way be required to spend their checks on improving their teams or otherwise investing in the growth of their organizations.

The competitive disincentives that caused the slashed-payroll train wrecks in Montreal, Florida, and Minnesota (low revenues = larger revenue sharing checks) still rule the day. With more Yankee dollars up for grabs, more teams are likely to see the benefit in putting a poor product on the field.

Clearly the owners who brokered this deal were not too worried about competitive balance. The single most important weapon of low-revenue teams trying to compete -- draft pick compensation for lost free-agents -- is eliminated under the new agreement.

But let’s give the owners their due. Unlike past negotiations that resulted in meritorious unfair labor practices lawsuits, this time the owners bargained more or less fairly for everything they got. Still, like Don Corleone’s rivals, the owners couldn't have gotten to the old man if it weren’t for the bumbling of those around him. In order to extract such a favorable deal, Selig and company needed help. In short, they needed a Fredo. Enter the players’ union.

Kind words (such as these) are routinely heaped upon the players’ union, but this time around Don Fehr and his clients were beaten badly, at least compared to past negotiations. The deal the players agreed to penalizes the teams most likely to spend their money on player contracts. It will lower players' salaries without doing anything to make the game more competitive.

True, the players averted contraction for the time being, but they willingly forfeited their right to contest it when it comes up again in 2007. That means that anywhere from 50 to 100 player jobs could be eliminated without negotiation. Most importantly, by agreeing with the owners that a luxury tax and increased revenue sharing were needed in the first place, the players abandoned their historical commitment to a system in which the free market dictates all.

The players will still make millions under the new agreement, free market or no. It is worth remembering, however, that the public sided with the players in previous labor struggles because the players were on the side of the free market. Everyone could sympathize with the players' desire to sell their talents to the highest bidder.

When the new agreement expires in 2007 and the owners demand more concessions (say, a hard salary cap?), the players may find that they have lost the moral high ground. If their only objection to the owners' demands is that they don't want to preserve their salaries, the drunken boobs holding up signs in the ballparks will (shudder) actually have a point.

Still, some agreement is better than losing another post-season in the name of philosophical consistency. Citizens living under the Five Families were guaranteed their booze, prostitution, and gambling once the mob wars ended. Similarly, now that the labor shooting is over, we are guaranteed baseball for the next four years. Are things perfect? Nah, but I’m willing to turn a blind eye to mostly victimless crimes if you are.

While it was still going on, major league baseball's recent labor drama was portrayed as a players vs. owners battle royale, with the fan's inalienable right to occasionally root for a winner allegedly at stake. In hindsight it looks more like a mob war.

Before the labor rhetoric heated up last year, baseball’s Capo Regimes like Jeffrey Loria and Carl Pohlad (led by Don Selig, sitting silently above the fray, petting a cat and watching his children run his empire) pushed competitive imbalance instead of narcotics and extorted new stadiums instead of cement contracts. Life was grand, and there was plenty of walking around money to shoot the players’ way, even if the bosses had to pretend to be poor olive oil salesmen when the press came snooping around.

But when George Steinbrenner broke with tradition and started his own television network, Selig and his cohorts reacted like Don Barzini and Bruno Tattaglia post-Solozzo: they all wanted to wet their beaks a little, and if Steinbrenner wouldn’t let them, it was going to mean war.

And war it was. What played out over the past few months was essentially an attempt by a certain faction of owners -- led by Selig -- to whack the old man in New York.

And whacked he was, at least financially.

Under the new agreement, well-run teams like the Yankees -- and to a lesser extent the Giants, Mariners, Indians, and Cardinals -- are forced to funnel even greater amounts of money than before to clueless organizations like the Phillies, Angels, and Tigers, who will in no way be required to spend their checks on improving their teams or otherwise investing in the growth of their organizations.

The competitive disincentives that caused the slashed-payroll train wrecks in Montreal, Florida, and Minnesota (low revenues = larger revenue sharing checks) still rule the day. With more Yankee dollars up for grabs, more teams are likely to see the benefit in putting a poor product on the field.

Clearly the owners who brokered this deal were not too worried about competitive balance. The single most important weapon of low-revenue teams trying to compete -- draft pick compensation for lost free-agents -- is eliminated under the new agreement.

But let’s give the owners their due. Unlike past negotiations that resulted in meritorious unfair labor practices lawsuits, this time the owners bargained more or less fairly for everything they got. Still, like Don Corleone’s rivals, the owners couldn't have gotten to the old man if it weren’t for the bumbling of those around him. In order to extract such a favorable deal, Selig and company needed help. In short, they needed a Fredo. Enter the players’ union.

Kind words (such as these) are routinely heaped upon the players’ union, but this time around Don Fehr and his clients were beaten badly, at least compared to past negotiations. The deal the players agreed to penalizes the teams most likely to spend their money on player contracts. It will lower players' salaries without doing anything to make the game more competitive.

True, the players averted contraction for the time being, but they willingly forfeited their right to contest it when it comes up again in 2007. That means that anywhere from 50 to 100 player jobs could be eliminated without negotiation. Most importantly, by agreeing with the owners that a luxury tax and increased revenue sharing were needed in the first place, the players abandoned their historical commitment to a system in which the free market dictates all.

The players will still make millions under the new agreement, free market or no. It is worth remembering, however, that the public sided with the players in previous labor struggles because the players were on the side of the free market. Everyone could sympathize with the players' desire to sell their talents to the highest bidder.

When the new agreement expires in 2007 and the owners demand more concessions (say, a hard salary cap?), the players may find that they have lost the moral high ground. If their only objection to the owners' demands is that they don't want to preserve their salaries, the drunken boobs holding up signs in the ballparks will (shudder) actually have a point.

Still, some agreement is better than losing another post-season in the name of philosophical consistency. Citizens living under the Five Families were guaranteed their booze, prostitution, and gambling once the mob wars ended. Similarly, now that the labor shooting is over, we are guaranteed baseball for the next four years. Are things perfect? Nah, but I’m willing to turn a blind eye to mostly victimless crimes if you are.

Friday, September 6, 2002

Back in June, ESPN’s Rob Neyer wrote of the then-struggling Oakland A’s that, "all that's left to play for are pride and 2003." To his credit, Neyer ate his crow this week and was even good enough to remind us that he wrote off the A’s last year as well, only to see them mount a second-half surge similar, albeit less spectacular, than this year’s. You have to wonder if Neyer has sworn off making predictions about the A's. If so, you could hardly blame him. The A’s seem to have mastered the art of defying reasonable expectations.

In the first place, it defies expectations that they're winning at all. When Neyer made his prediction earlier this year, Oakland was eight games behind the first-place Mariners for the division lead, nine games behind the Yankees, and 11 games behind the Red Sox in the wild-card race. Since then they have won 61 of 89 games -- a record topped off by the current 20-game winning streak. This stretch is basically identical to their 2001 drive, which constituted one of the greatest second-halves of all time. You don't exactly make a living in sportswriting by predicting back-to-back miracles.

But it’s the more subtle improbabilities that really excite me. Last year’s surge was led by Jason Giambi, who put up a season that should have given him his second-straight MVP award. When Giambi walked, he left a massive hole in the lineup to be filled by stiffs like Scott Hatteberg and David Justice, and the non-stiff but certainly unproven Jeremy Giambi. Teams with MVPs can do amazing things; teams with journeymen tend to play at or below expectations. The A’s weren't supposed to have the personnel to pull off this historic run.

Adding to the improbability of it all is that in May the A’s seemed to have taken a mid-season downgrade in the journeyman department, trading a solidly performing Jeremy Giambi for one of the poster boys of stiffdom, John Mabry. Some of you might recall that the more enlightened members of the baseball punditry viewed this trade with extreme skepticism. One clever wag called the trade "bungling of the highest order." All John Freakin’ Mabry (as he has come to be known by critics of the trade) has done is put up a .938 OPS in part- time play -- and shut the mouths of the clever wags. A’s GM Billy Beane has always managed to squeeze the occasional good performance out of spare part players. With Mabry he has squeezed from the bottom and rolled the tube up.

Finally, let's not forget that the A’s now-annual second-half march to the sea has been accomplished with the third-lowest payroll in the majors. The only teams who spend less on payroll are the Montreal Expos, who are in receivership, and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, who are on pace to lose 107 games. And to think we almost lost this season because the owners thought that teams with low payrolls couldn't compete against the big boys. Of course, if the A's win the World Series, history will probably give the new and inferior collective bargaining agreement all the credit.

But that’s the future. For now fans should just sit back and enjoy the A’s magnificently improbable run, and hope to Heaven above that the irresistible force from Oakland meets the immovable New York Yankees in the playoffs for the third year in a row. Given what we've been through this season, we've earned it.